More On "Erroneous" Government Data - So What!

A while ago I posted an article that dealt with an unusual pattern of 7 out of 8 adjustments to the initial claims data being in the direction of negative news for the labor market. I pointed out the low probability of this being a chance phenomenon, and mentioned that I would follow it for a while longer before concluding it was in fact not a chance phenomenon. Well gaze upon a full quarters data (13 weeks) in Table 1. With only one exception, the initial report underestimates the severity of unemployment claims. The probability of seeing 12 or more reports in the same direction by chance is only about 17 in 10,000. Something is going on with their reporting system!

If you add this preliminary information about the "errors" in reporting economic data to the rather large base of information concerning the manipulation of previous metals markets you've got a rather odious concoction.

Table 1

Initial Claims

Date of Correction

Actual Prior Week's Claims

Prior Week's First Report

Under(-)/Over(+) Estimate

07/31/03

391000

386000

-5000

08/07/03

393000

388000

-5000

08/14/03

396000

390000

-6000

08/21/03

403000

396000

-7000

08/28/03

391000

386000

-5000

09/04/03

394000

398000

4000

09/11/03

419000

413000

-6000

09/18/03

428000

422000

-6000

09/25/03

400000

399000

-1000

10/02/03

386000

381000

-5000

10/09/03

405000

399000

-6000

10/16/03

388000

382000

-6000

10/23/03

390000

384000

-6000

Average =

-4615

Some suggest that if only the information about erroneous economic statistics and manipulated precious metal markets were made public then the people would demand the political changes necessary to "fix" these items. Maybe that is so, but at least two underlying causes of these factors would not be solved and would just give rise to alternative subterfuges and confabulations. What are those underlying factors?

1. Through our educational system, the media, and the political class a belief has been instilled in the populace that you can have personal freedom without economic freedom. Much has been written about this fallacy and I shall not dwell on it here.

2. A manipulation of the tax system has been engineered so that a pro big-government, pro-big taxation majority has been created. The major economic support for this majority is a tax system, so far in the Marxian direction of "to each according to his needs from each according to his ability", that the most productive minority is a permanent and increasing prey to the rest of society. This verbal description is made more concrete by the following statistics of a few years ago:

Table 2

Comparison of Percent of Income Earned& Percent of Federal Income Tax Burden

Income

% of Federal Tax Burden

% of All Earned

Top 1% of earners

37.4%

20.8%

Top 10% of earners

67.0%

46.0%

Bottom 50% of earners

<4.0%

14.0%

You can see from the extremely skewed distribution of tax burden among the three groupings represented that the government, through its tax law creation, has produced a majority of people who pay virtually no Federal Income Tax. This is a majority of the population who has a vested interest in keeping the government big, expropriating income from the producers, and maintaining many "programs" for them. This is a group that has been schooled and induced into valuing security over freedom. With the label "entitlement" fastened to an ever more numerous, and individually larger set of programs, they assume a right to the fruits of another's labor. Individuals who have been conditioned to value the economic liberty of others so lightly will not call for the government changes necessary regardless of the stories about market manipulation, fiat currency theft and "erroneous" economic data reporting. This is a task that might well be beyond an educational and media system so damaged with respect to understanding individual liberty as it was spelled out in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

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